


None of Us Are Normal

by Superfluous_Gypsy



Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Exhibitionism, Fluff and Smut, Gen, Getting Together, Humiliation, M/M, Plushophilia, Rope Bondage, Sex Toys, Submission, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-16
Updated: 2018-02-16
Packaged: 2019-03-19 08:48:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13701039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Superfluous_Gypsy/pseuds/Superfluous_Gypsy
Summary: The media would convince the world that Steve Rogers was a holy icon instead of a human man. It drove Steve crazy every time. It also kicked into gear a deep streak of masochistic contrariness, as if the glowing praise of Saint Rogers made Steve automatically need to debase himself.Tony thinks the Avengers have the strangest definition of "team building" and unhealthy ideas of personal boundaries. Steve thinks everyone in this century is a sexual deviant. But they're both okay with that.





	None of Us Are Normal

**Author's Note:**

> Quick edit/format. Just finally getting this out into the ether for other pervs to enjoy.

It happened every so often, after a big battle against the forces of evil du jour, that the media would replay the Captain America B-roll, cut in clips of contemporary interviews, and convince the U.S. and the entire world that Steve Rogers was a holy icon instead of a human man.  


It drove Steve crazy every time. It also kicked into gear a deep streak of masochistic contrariness, as if the glowing praise of Saint Rogers made Steve automatically need to debase himself. Or like it was a test he needed to put his friends through, Tony through, to prove that they actually accepted him as a normal person.  


"I want to do this," Steve said seriously, looking up at Tony from his position on the floor. "You liked it when we did it before. Didn't you?" The uncertainty in his eyes was something even Tony Stark couldn't just leave him with.  


He didn't have to cave in gracefully, though. "You know I can't get any work done when you're doing that."  


"You have been in here for eleven hours. I'm sure you've done enough to call it a day."  


Tony reluctantly told JARVIS to make sure everything was saved and motioned Steve to precede him out of his shop. He stood and made sure that Tony was actually following him and not just bluffing.  


"You already talked to everyone else?"  
Steve hummed in agreement, and they started up the stairs.  


The first time, after the fallout of celebratory news coverage of the Battle of New York, Steve had started acting weird. It wasn't until Bruce had suggested that Steve was experiencing depression that anyone had actually thought that there was something wrong with Captain America. When Clint confessed that, Steve had gotten upset and practically yelled at them that he wasn't a goddamned saint. Natasha had ordered him to stop shouting and sit back down, and something had seemed to click in everyone's minds at how pathetically eager Steve was to do what she said. There was some experimenting that followed (and a ridiculous maid costume Tony had ordered online on a whim as a joke that suddenly wasn't a joke at all) and when four days had passed it was clear that Steve had a humiliation streak with a side of masochistic tendencies.  


...And that the Avengers as a whole had the strangest definition of "team building," and, as individuals, unhealthy ideas of personal boundaries.  


This was the fourth time they had saved the world (or at least a large chunk of it), and Tony was both afraid and excited to see what this round would include. The collar and leash had been introduced by Natasha last time, and Tony found his imagination limited as to what could possibly come next.  


Natasha and Clint were waiting for him and Steve in the lounge area. There was a plastic storage tub on the floor by Natasha's feet.  


"And to think, I used to defend you when people would make comments about your costume making you look like a dominatrix," Tony joked, nervous but trying to hide it.  


Natasha's reply didn't calm his nerves at all. She shrugged and said, "Fluids wash off it easily."  


Clint's grim head tilt and understanding nod just made things worse. Tony shuddered. "Sometimes I almost start to think you're normal people."  


Bruce walked in. "None of us are normal." He casually ruffled Steve's hair as he passed the kneeling man to sit on a sofa. Steve's eyes followed him almost longingly.  


"Down to business," Natasha said, clasping her hands together. "Steve, what do you need?"  


Steve straightened his back. "Orders?" He said, his eagerness tinged with a bit of shame.  


Clint scoffed gently. "Well, yeah. But is it costume time or paddlin' time or what?"  


Steve shook his head quickly. "No pain this time. Please?" He added, looking to Natasha.  


"No pain," she agreed with a firm nod. "You want to be touched."  


Steve nodded with an almost pathetic amount of eagerness. "Yes. If you guys will, I mean."  


Bruce made a beckoning motion and Steve's gaze zipped hopefully to him, but Natasha intervened. "Not during negotiations." Steve bent his head down like a scolded puppy.  


"We aren't very tactile people," Natasha said. "Except for Bruce, maybe." Bruce shook his head in denial, but she continued. "And you're kind of stuck with us and only us. Can we all try to make an effort to give Steve physical affection for the next couple days?"  


Tony and Bruce nodded, and Clint added, "Good touching only? Or naughty touching, too?"  


"Steve?" Natasha asked. "We did talk about adding a sexual element to this."  


Steve was blushing vividly, but he nodded. "I can be naked. I would," he had to force himself to get the words out, "probably be ....excited. I don't want anyone to be uncomfortable."  


Clint smirked and winked. "I bet a super soldier can keep it up for a looong time." Steve ducked his head bashfully and nodded.  


"Tony? Bruce?"  


"Whatever you need, Steve," Bruce said kindly. The four of them turned to Tony.  


"Are we supposed to help get him off?" Tony asked. "Because I can't guarantee that I won't get excited if I see Captain Hard-On lounging around 24-7."  


His deflection seemed to affect Steve, as he kind of huddled into himself. Natasha was quick to criticize Tony. "We are acknowledging a sexual element, not a sexual relationship," she rebuked. "We do not want to take advantage of Steve when he's acting out his submissive desires. And remember the first rule of Avengers Club?"  


"Only first names when we're not in the field," Tony droned, before putting on his most contrite face. "Yeah, sorry Steve. I know this is all about validating you as a person instead of the icon." It was really hard for Tony to drop his defensive habits. He reached out a hand to Steve and the man ducked his head under it like a cat, letting Tony's fingers scratch his scalp.  


"No naughty touching," Natasha said.  


"No touching Steve at all in his bathing suit area, right?" Clint said, with an edge of amusement. "That's what we call it when teaching kids now about stranger danger."  


"Most child molestation is done by family members," Tony said. "Are you really fully protecting your kids if you aren't addressing the possibility of incest?"  


Clint made a disgusted expression. "Not the time, Stark."  


"First rule of Avengers Club," Tony sang annoyingly.  


Clint rolled his eyes, but didn't hide his sharp smile. "Tony," he said deliberately, "thank you for your critique on my parenting skills," he said sarcastically.  


"Focus," Natasha said. "Tony," she looked pointedly at his hand that was still buried in Steve's hair.  


"Gotcha," he said, pulling it away. Steve almost pouted.  


"So, full nudity, sexual element, focus on physical affection with the limit of deliberate sexual contact. All other limits apply?"  
Steve nodded. "No pain."  


"No pain," Natasha confirmed. "Everyone in agreement with the rules?" The team all verbally consented. "Starting now?" She asked Steve. He nodded eagerly. "Get undressed," she ordered, beginning to pull the lid off the plastic container.  


Steve did, and Tony specifically avoided watching. Seeing Steve strip when they weren't on their way to a crisis and getting into their gear was likely to increase his excitement from a low erotic thrum to a full-on tent in his slacks. Naked Steve would be hard enough to handle - or specifically not handle.  


He saw what Natasha pulled out of the bin and the tent began to pitch anyway. A cock-ring. Jesus Christ, Tony was not going to survive the next few days.  


"I want you to get hard, then put this on," Natasha instructed, handing it to Steve.  


"They had those in the forties?" Tony blurted out.  


Both Natasha and Steve looked at him. Her expression was condescending, but Tony couldn't interpret his. "I suggested some web sites for him to read," she said.  


Tony couldn't keep his gaze away from Steve's hand as he started jacking himself to hardness. He caught Clint's smirk and knew he wasn't hiding his fascination and excitement. His heart felt like it was beating too fast and growing bigger; maybe it would get big enough to swallow the shrapnel, and Tony would die and avoid having to endure this arousal and embarrassment.  


He wanted to leave for some alone time, but another rule was that they all stayed for the first few hours of their really twisted team bonding time.  


"Movie?" Tony asked brightly. "I'm thinking something sports."  


" _Field of Dreams_?" Clint suggested with a smirk.  


"No," Tony shot back, feeling a real stab of pain right in his daddy issues.  


"Steve might like it," Bruce said thoughtfully. "Old-timey baseball."  


"No," Tony said again, firmly. "If Steve wants old-timey baseball, it's _A League of Their Own_ or nothing."  


"Fine with me," Clint said with a shrug.  


Steve watched the entire movie from the floor, getting to remove the cock ring at the first intermission Clint forced upon them when he demanded more snacks. Steve ended up sitting between Bruce and Tony's legs, leaning more and more against Tony as he seemed to get absorbed with the movie.  


Tony ended up falling asleep halfway into it. He woke up much later when everything was dark and he and Steve were the only ones left in the room.  


"Why're y' still 'ere?" He mumbled, jiggling his leg a bit to rouse the man slumped against it.  


Steve shivered. "Didn't want to leave you."  


"I'm goin' to bed," Tony said, stumbling to his feet.  


"Can I- can I come with you?" Steve's voice sounded vulnerable and needy in the dark. Whenever his team helped him with his submissive streak he tended to share a bed with one of them. Tony grunted an affirmative noise, then staggered toward the elevator. Steve followed.  


Tony was a heavy sleeper, even if Steve wasn't, and never woke during the times Steve shuddered awake with a bone-deep chill he knew was psychosomatic and pressed his body against Tony's warm one.  


When they woke up for the day in the morning, Steve was unable to hide his morning erection. Tony pointedly looked down at it, gave him a little smirk that made Steve blush, but didn't say anything as he got out of bed. The casual attention Tony gave his hard dick made a frisson of erotic shame heat up his stomach and face, and made his dick stiffen even more and begin to leak. It wouldn't go down, and when Tony emerged from the attached bathroom and walk-in closet, he gestured for Steve to leave the bedroom with him. Steve was a bit reluctant to walk; he hadn't fully thought about the fact that when he was really turned on he tended to produce a lot of precome. Tony grinned with shadenfruede, even as he adjusted the crotch of his own pants.  


"I'd help ya, but it's against the rules," Tony taunted. "Come on, I bet you need breakfast. No, you can't touch it, not while I'm right here watching. The rules. I order you to come to the kitchen with me now, Steve; you can jack off on your own if you get a chance later."  


Steve obeyed silently, while the conflicting desires to get himself off and humiliate himself in front of his team struggled inside his head.  


Natasha and Clint were in the kitchen, done with eating their portions of the large breakfast they had cooked up. "I want to feed you," Natasha told Steve, and he knelt on the floor next to her chair. She used her bare fingers to give Steve morsels of fried potatoes, folded up slices of ham, and syrup-drenched portions of waffles. She even held the glass of milk to his lips and tipped it for him. His erection subsided, but Steve felt warm and tingly in a different way with the attention and care Natasha was giving him. This was really what he wanted from his team: validation that he was cared about for being himself.  


...Though he would be very amenable to receiving some much more personal care from Tony as well as providing plenty of... comfort in return.  


After eating, Natasha asked him to clean up the kitchen. He was allowed to excuse himself to use the bathroom first, but when he opened the door to his bedroom after using his en suite he saw Natasha waiting on the bed. "Do you think you can do the dishes while wearing this?" She held up a plastic bag with a curved sex toy and a tube of lube inside. "It's a prostate massager," she clarified.  


Steve blushed but knew he wouldn't refuse. She had already catalogued the excited bobbing of his cock at the thought with her sharp gaze. When he nodded, she stood and handed the bag over. "It's all clean. You just need to slick it up and stick it in. Do you want me to tell everyone the kitchen is off limits while you do your work?"  


Steve didn't want to say yes but he couldn't get himself to say no, either. He shrugged, had to clear his throat, then said, "If you'd like."  


Her friendly smile took on a predatory edge. "I know I'd like to watch."  


Steve nodded and shut himself in the bathroom again. When he came back out, cheeks red and cock hard and drooling once again, she smirked. "Looks like you already turned it on. Okay. Time for you to clean the kitchen. You aren't allowed to touch yourself, but you can leak and come all you like. How do you feel about having to lick your fluids from the floor? Tony's 'bots mopped it last night after dinner, so it should be clean enough. Not that you need to worry about getting sick."  


Just imagining himself having to clean his come off the hardwood floor made Steve's ass clench hard around the vibrator, and his hips quake with a sharp spike of arousal. "I will do it if you want me to."  


Natasha's eyes and smile softened. "I would like to see you orgasm from the pleasure of that toy. I would also like to see you get down on your hands and knees and lick up your shame like a naughty puppy."  


Steve shivered at the banked heat in her voice and followed her back out the hall and into the kitchen. Tony was still sitting at the table with a mug of coffee and a tablet. He looked up and raised his eyebrows. "I had no idea your blush went that far down. You look very pretty in pink, Steve." He bent his head back down like he was dismissing the oddness of the scenario, but he couldn't take his gaze away from Steve who suddenly gasped loudly and began clutching the edge of the countertop.  


"Randomly timed variations of intensity," Natasha explained. "I wouldn't want you to get bored."  


Steve ejaculated down the door of a cabinet.  


"You definitely want to watch this part, Tony," Natasha said. He did watch, fascinated, as Steve went on his knees and contorted his neck and head so he could lick up his spunk. Tony could see the toy emerging from between his ass cheeks and crooking up like a stubby silicone tail. Steve had to lap at the floor where more jizz had dropped while he was cleaning up the first mess.  


Tony was uncomfortably hard for the next forty minutes watching Steve wash some dishes, shudder and shoot a wad, get down and lick it up, then continue the process. After Steve's fourth orgasm he dropped to the floor instead of gracefully kneeling and lay on his back ignoring the mess and catching his breath. Tony kept eying Steve's dick, still standing from his blond bush half-hard. Natasha had left at some point, Tony hadn't even noticed, so it was just him and a debauched muscled Adonis left alone in the room.  


"I really have to jerk myself off right now," Tony confessed, sounding as breathless as Steve appeared to be. "Do you need me to go away to do it?"  


Steve rolled over and propped up his chin with his crossed arms so he could look back at Tony. "Only if you don't want me to watch," he replied.  


Tony unzipped his jeans, pushed his briefs out of the way, and let his dick out with a loud groan. He squeezed it with one hand as he said, "I've been like this since you first came," he confessed, having to close his eyes to block out the sight of Steve licking his lips. "Fuck, don't do that! No naughty touching is the rule, you tease!"  


"Maybe we can change that," Steve said, his gaze locked on the glimpses of the head of Tony's cock whenever his fist jacked back down. "I want that in my mouth."  


Tony grunted as he came, his jizz landing on his hand and dribbling down onto his trousers. His body released its tension and he leaned back into the chair. When he opened his eyes Steve was right there, on hands and knees, like he had stalked up on all fours like a tiger, eyes still fixated on Tony's crotch.  


"I'm supposed to be cleaning the kitchen," he said. Tony gave no response, so he added, "You're in the kitchen."  


Tony huffed out a breath that was half laughter and half dismissal. "I know I usually love breaking all the rules, but I don't want to get Natasha mad at me over this."  


"No sexual contact," the woman in question said loudly from a doorway.  


Steve enjoyed the jolt that thrashed through Tony's entire body. "I wasn't! I'm not!" Tony defended himself, lifting his hands up like he was under arrest.  


"Steve, you can eat the come from his hand, but don't you dare lick him anywhere else," Natasha ordered.  


Before Tony's endorphin-hazed mind could interpret that, Steve had grabbed him by his forearm, pulled his hand to his face, and was smelling his spunk like he was one of those douchy wine connoisseurs.  


An "Ew," slipped from Tony without conscious thought. Steve just shrugged then started licking his hand. Tony paid close attention so he could envision this the next time he needed some "me time." Which would probably be in an hour or two.  


"Hey, Steve," Clint called as he entered the kitchen. "I need to practice my rope skills. You mind acting as my captive?" He wiggled his eyebrows. I'm thinking some stress positions, followed up by a ankle-to-shoulder full-body bind. You game?"  


"Sure," Steve replied, shrugging and getting himself to his feet. The quick shift of his attention to Clint was meant to deliberately rile up Tony who hated being so casually dismissed..  


"Where you guys gonna be, the gym? I'll clean up, then maybe go down and have a look," Tony added.  


When he did get to the gym after changing his clothes and taking a shower, he found Steve on his side bound into a hog-tie, his arms and legs bent behind him.  


"Looks like you're taking it easy on him, " Tony observed.  


"I'm just getting him warmed up."  


"Did you offer to remove the vibrator?"  


Clint replied, "Yeah, it's out."  


Tony walked up to and then bent over Steve. "You don't look stressed."  


Steve huffed derisively. "It's obvious that Natasha has much better skills at securing captive agents. Not very good at taking down bad guys by yourself without back-up, Barton?"  


"Of course I am!"  


"Then crank up the pressure on 'im, Hawkeye," Tony said. "You got a super soldier to practice on; take advantage of the opportunity!"  
Ten minutes later, Steve was balanced on the tips of his toes, arms tied together and stretched over his head, the rope slung over a ceiling beam and anchored to a weight machine.  


Clint and Tony were frowning in thought. "Usually my victims are more wiggly than this," Clint said.  


Steve smirked. "I can stand on my toes all day," he said smugly.  


"Should we shorten the rope more?" Tony asked.  


"We could, but the rule is no pain," Clint replied. "I don't want him to actually dislocate his shoulders."  


"Maybe we should add an 'erotic element,'" Tony suggested. "We can't touch his dick, but we can certainly stimulate it with some toys."  


"If you've got toys you want him to play with, then bring 'em down," Clint said agreeably.  


When Tony came down he was holding a canvas bag of various items. He made a show of deciding what to pull out first, then retrieved a few feathers. "Shall we see if he's ticklish?"  


"I'm not," Steve said confidently.  


"Everyone says that when they are being threatened with tickling," Tony said, letting Clint take his pick of feather. They strategically attacked sensitive parts of Steve's body, but he didn't even twitch.  
After a couple minutes, they stepped back. "I'm very disappointed," Clint said.  


Tony returned to the bag and got out a Tupperware. "Ice play?" He asked, rattling the cubes inside.  


"No," Steve said firmly, his eyes wide.  


"Sounded like a serious no to me, so no ice," Tony said, setting the plastic box on the floor. "Okay, how 'bout moving on to the main event?" He pulled out a tube of personal lubricant and a white cylinder. Steve didn't recognize the object but Clint did, and he started laughing. Tony did something with the lube and object, and Steve hoped he wasn't expected to take that thing in his ass. It was much too wide.  


Tony finished the prep and stepped close. "Not allowed to touch you," he said, "so you have to get yourself hard.  


"No problem," Steve said, dropping his head down to poke his nose into Tony's hair. He inhaled his scent, but he could only smell the soap and shampoo Tony had used in the shower. "But you can touch me. Just not there. Where I would really like to feel you."  


Steve's voice was low and had a hint of a rasp in it. Tony's knees went weak as Steve's breath brushed against Tony's left ear as Steve tried to nuzzle his way down the side of his face, but he couldn't go down too far because of his forced position pulled straight and on his toes. "Why can't you be taller?" He complained, and it was immediately followed up with a long groan as something warm and wet swallowing his dick.  


He looked down to see Tony holding the white object up to his pelvis. "What is that?" He couldn't stop his hips from pushing forward and back, working his dick into the firm, welcoming embrace of the object.  


"Fleshlight," Tony answered. His mouth was pursed into a moue of concentration, but his darkened eyes and uneven breathing let Steve know his real feelings watching Steve fuck into the toy. "You like?"  


"It's good," Steve admitted. "But I would prefer the real thing," he added in an unmistakably flirtatious way. He heard Barton cracking up from a few yards away, and Tony grinned, too.  


"What?" Steve asked, not getting the joke.  


"It's shaped like a horse's vagina," Tony explained, laughing harder at Steve's disgusted expression.  


"Why the hell...? Everyone in this century is a sexual deviant!"  


"Not everyone is as perverted as Natasha and Tony," Clint defended.  


"I don't even know what a horse's... parts... look like," Steve said, letting his shoulders take his weight briefly as he pulled his dick out of and away from the thing.  


Tony shrugged. "I don't either. It was Rhodey's idea of a joke: a horse's ass for a horse's ass. But I am actually impressed with the quality of the product. Does it really matter if a fake cunt is a human one or an animal one?"  


"Yes," Steve insisted.  


Tony stepped back, pulling the flashlight away and rolling his eyes. He then looked pointedly down at Steve's hard, glistening cock. "You sure you don't want to finish?"  


"Not with that."  


"Fine," Tony replied. He walked over and pulled the last item from the canvas bag: a stuffed pink rabbit. Clint snorted and chuckled.  
"You did say 'toys,'" Tony reminded him. "This is, literally, the only toy I had." He held it up to Steve's face. "You wanna finish? You can rub off against this."  


Steve was struggling with the soft but strong rope tying his wrists together. His arousal kept making him clamp his thighs together, which would knock him off his toes and make him swing by his arms before he could attain another toehold on the floor.  


"You definitely got him to squirm," Clint said approvingly.  


"You're not letting him go until he's soft again, right?" Tony asked Clint.  


Barton shrugged. "Sure. He is a super soldier, after all, and can take it."  


"You in pain, yet?" Tony checked. Steve shook his head, almost regretful that he couldn't just lie to get himself out of this without more embarrassment. "You can either ask to hump the bunny or we can just let you hang out until you're not horny anymore. Your choice."  


"I don't want to," Steve said quietly, his face red.  


"Is that a hard line, Steve?"  


Steve shook his head honestly. It was just shame. He liked the shame, though he didn't always like that he liked it. But this was why he was doing this with his team: to satisfy this craving to demean himself in front of them and trust that they still would give him respect and affection afterwards.  


Tony stood still, keeping the toy rabbit up in Steve's line of sight. He tried to will his erection down, but being bound helpless and naked in front of his two male friends kept his body too excited. He finally broke, his shoulders aching and gleaming with sweat as he kept losing his footing and struggling to regain it.  


"Please, Tony. Let me..." He trailed off, ears burning even hotter.  


"Say it," Tony urged, with a hard mouth but soft eyes.  


"Let me hump the bunny," Steve requested quietly.  


Tony held it to his groin. Steve's cock nestled in the synthetic fur. The toy was soft, but the strands of fur were rather coarse and stuck to his damp dick. He thrust against it tentatively, wondering if the roughness would be too much. Apparently not; his dick angled itself into the corner where the toy's right arm and leg joined the torso, and he could feel pre-come leak onto the stuffed animal. He soon couldn't stop his thrusts against the rabbit, and closed his eyes as his brain stewed in a bath of nearly unbearable sexual arousal and mortification. He kept thrusting as come spurt out, grinding twice more into the soaked and matted synthetic fur, before letting his feet drop from under him and hanging by his bound wrists, recovering his breath.  


"Let him down," Tony said, tossing the ruined toy away, and he took a lot of Steve's weight when the rope loosened. Steve was feeling wrung out, and was slow to move his feet into the right position to stand, but Tony held him until he managed. Tony urged them to the floor, keeping his arms around him the whole time. Steve ended up being cuddled across his friend's lap and turned his face towards Tony's chest, closing his eyes and just breathing. He felt floppy and weak in the best way, with the glowing euphoria and satisfaction of being naked, post-orgasm, with his wrists tied together behind him, and his skin smeared with his own come. Clint came close and buried his fingers in his hair.  


"This is the happiest I've ever seen him look," Clint commented quietly. "I still don't understand why he likes this weird stuff so much, but I believe that we're definitely doing the right thing by helping him out."  


Steve briefly thought about feeling sad or ashamed, but Tony tightened his embrace and he hummed happily and Steve decided to keep on drifting in the blissful peace longer.  


"Psychology is not my bailiwick, but it's not hurting him and he isn't asking us to go beyond what we're individually okay with, so what's the harm?"  


After some more immeasurable time, Steve's afterglow started to wane and he shifted to relieve the pressure of Tony's knee digging into his side. Tony began to move then, and ripped open a white packet with his teeth, shook the contents out, then used one hand to use the wipe to scrub at the drying ejaculate on Steve's skin. Steve opened his eyes and watched Tony's face as he concentrated on being thorough yet gentle.  


He loved Tony. The man was absolutely amazing.  


"What?" Tony eyed him a bit nervously. "Why are you staring at me like that?"  


Steve didn't want to scare him off, so he downplayed his thoughts. "You're a good man."  


Tony's look turned skeptical. "If you say so. I don't think you're in a clear state of mind right now, so I won't argue."  


Steve just closed his eyes again and nuzzled his face against Tony's chest. He could feel the hardness of the arc reactor, and its humming was more of a physical sensation than an audible sound. Tony's breathing, even at rest, was always faster than the rest of the team's. Steve didn't know how deep the device went into the man's body, but it seemed to affect the expansion of Tony's lungs. He often appeared to be in pain even. Even just over the last couple years Steve had known him lines of stress around Tony's mouth and eyes had been etched deeper into his face.  


Clint was untying the rope from his arms, and Steve appreciated the opportunity to finally wrap his own arms around his friend.  


Tony instinctively stiffened before forcing his back to relax. "You seem pretty wrung out. You wanna go to bed and take a nap?"  


Steve let his eyes stay closed and just hummed an "I don't care" tone. He was fine on the floor as long as he was cuddled up like this with Tony. He tightened his embrace whenever the other man made a movement to get up.  


Tony patted his head and sighed. It sounded frustrated, but Steve was pretty sure Tony's face wouldn't match the dramatic complaint the sigh expressed. "One of us isn't a king-sized gymnast with rubber band tendons, Steve, so I'm not particularly comfortable being stuck under you on the gym floor for the foreseeable future. If I promise we can keep on doing this, can we take this to the couch upstairs where an old man won't break a hip from the stress of your weight?"  


Steve's mind sharpened from the floaty haze it had been enjoying. Tony had been making a lot of these "old man" comments lately, and Steve wasn't sure if they were based on his physical condition or just an expression of how he internally compared himself to the rest of the team.  


Steve pushed himself up, took a moment to feel steady on his feet, then picked up Tony and cradled him to his chest.  


"Ack!" Tony sputtered, giving Clint a poisonous look for daring to laugh. He kicked his feet and flailed the arm that wasn't tucked between their bodies. "There's no reason for you to carry me around!"  


"Hey," Clint cut in as the two of them moved toward the door, "Don't leave me here to clean this gross shit up!"  


"Leave it for the cleaning staff! They've dealt with much worse," Tony replied. He stopped writhing as soon as they were out in the hallway and out of Clint's sight.


End file.
